“Well, I'll never forget that night as long as I live. There we were, Harry, and Maria, and myself, undther a three, with a ratling fire blazing away before us. We gave our blankets to the girl when the men were asleep, and I got plenty of India corn straw, which is like our flaggers, an' made up a good bed for her, an' stuck plenty o' branches into the bank over her, to keep off the djew. There she slept, poor sowl! while Harry and I sat at the fire, until we fell asleep, discoursing o' one thing or other. We had some grapes an' bread, an' a thrifle o' wine which I got in the town on the way (becaise I had a look out for a dthry day), upon which the whole of us faisted well. “When the girl fell asleep, Harry towld me all about her coming away with him. Says he, ‘Tom, you're my only friend in the regiment that I would confide in, and if I fall I request you will do what's right for that poor dear girl, just the same as a sisther.’ ‘Don't talk about falling,’ says I, ‘till you're dead in earnest. God forbid ya should ever lave us without _falling in_ with a few score o' the French scoundthrels and giving them their godsend.’ “‘Well,’ says he, ‘Tom there's no knowing any of our fates, so God bless you, do as I bid you.’ (I shook his hand, and it was in thrue friendship too. I didn't spake; but he knew what I meant.) ‘She has got most respectable friends in Lisbon, and here's the adthress—“_Rua de Flores, Lisbōa_.”’ I took the paper, and put it up in the inside breast-pocket o' my jacket, where I kept my _will_ in case I was _settled_; for I had a thrifle which I wished my mother and sisther to get in case of accident; an' by my sowl, there was plenty o' rason to expect it, for the report was that the French was coming up in very great force. ‘Tom,’ says he, ‘that sweet girl sleeping there, is as dear to me as my life; an' dearer too. I'll take care of her, plase God, until I bring her to her friends; now that her father is dead and she's an orphan, she shall be to me only as a sisther, until we get to Lisbon, an' then she shall be my wife. Therefore, stand by me, Tom, in protecting her on the march. In the dthress she now wears, she will pass as a muleteer of our division, and not rise wondther in the men. We must say that his mule was killed, an' that he is a good fellow we have taken a liking to—if any body asks about her. I took her away for the best; becaise she was in danger of every thing bad, and also a burthen to the people she was with, at such a time as this. I swore on the Holy Evangelists, before the ould couple, that I would protect her to Lisbon inviolate, and I hope I'll keep my oath, Tom. If I brake it, may that burning log there watch my corpse!’ ‘Then,’ says I, ‘Tom, I'll do my part, an' if I don't mane to do it, may the same light watch mine!’